Author: Brayden Lindrea, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Wuzhu, Golden Finance
Stanislav Moiseev, the founder of online black market and cryptocurrency mixing service Hydra, who received over $5 billion worth of cryptocurrency during his operations, has been sentenced to life in prison by a Russian court.
The Moscow Regional Court found Moiseev and 15 of his associates guilty of organizing a criminal group and illegally producing and selling psychotropic substances and narcotics, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on December 2.
Fifteen of Moiseev’s accomplices were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 23 years.
Moiseev was also fined $38,100 (4 million rubles), while 15 of his accomplices were ordered to pay a total of $152,400 (16 million rubles).
As part of the sentencing order, property and vehicles associated with the convicted person were also seized.
They will serve their sentences in a correctional facility under a "strict regime," according to Russian state media Tass.
The Moscow court sentenced Hydra. Source: TASS
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Hydra was once the world's largest darknet market, accounting for 80% of all darknet-related cryptocurrency transactions in 2021 and earning more than $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency revenue from its launch in 2015 to its closure in 2022.
It is notorious for selling stolen credit card data, counterfeit currency and fake IDs.
As its criminal activities became more sophisticated, Hydra’s cryptocurrency trading volume on exchanges surged 624% year-over-year between 2018 and 2020, according to a May 2021 report by blockchain security firm Flashpoint.
German authorities shut down the company in April 2022, seized its bitcoins and servers in the country, and reported that the service had 17 million customers and 19,000 supplier accounts. German law enforcement also seized nearly a ton of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
Hydra has been under investigation by Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry since 2016.
Other members of the group sentenced include Alexander Chirkov, Andrei Trunov, Evgeny Andreev, Ivan Koryakin, Vadim Krasninsky, Georgy Kierobiani, Artur Kolesnikov, Nikolai Bilyk, Alekandr Kabalina, Mikhail Dombrovkogo, Alexander Aminova and Sergey Czech.
These decisions can be appealed.
According to a Chainalysis report earlier this year, darknet markets are expected to generate at least $1.7 billion in revenue in 2023, a further increase from 2022, when Hydra was shut down.